Recessed Light repair

[Camilo]

Hi: I have a 14 foot cathedral ceiling with recessed lighting fixtures. This house is about 18 years old and the fixtures, as far as I know, are original. Other than replacing the bulbs when needed, I know nothing about these fixtures other than:

They are inside the ceiling and have roughly a coffee-can shape and size. They are trimmed out with a white metal circular band. They take standard spot/flood type bulbs (we use 60 watt).

One of these fixtures is not working. The others on that circuit do work. I have tried a couple different new bulbs in it so am fairly confident it's the fixture or wiring connections, not the wall switch, circuit or bulb.

With a normal ceiling fixture, I'd just remove the fixture, check and re-do connections, and check the voltage with my multi-meter if there wasn't an obvious connection issue.

With these fixtures, I have no idea how to remove them. Since they are a tall ladder climb, I'd like some vague idea how to remove it to get at the wiring to test connections and current.

Can someone give me some basic guidance as to how these recessed type lights are removed- I didn't see any obvious clues when I was up there.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

Cam.

[RBM]

[Colbyt]

Good advice, but a lot of non-IC rated fixtures( without the thermal overload protection) have been sold in the last 20 years.

Before I took anything apart I would make ABSOLUTELY SURE that the power was off to this circuit, remove the bulb and stick my finger into the lampholder and bend the metal flange at the bottom of the holder toward the floor about

1/4". Sometimes when people over-tighten bulbs it gets compressed and does not make contact with the base of the bulb. If that doesn't work the sensor is the most likely cause.

Modern fixture have a wing nut that allow the lamp holder to be bulled free allowing access to the IC device. If you think it is bad you can cut and splice (or jumper it to test)with the power off. Be sure to replace it if it is bad. It is there for your safety.

Try not to fall of the ladder.:)

Colbyt

[William Deans]

Greetings,

First off, I like what everyone has said. If you are at Home Depot anyway go and hold a few recessed lighting fixtures in your hand and you can quickly get a VERY good sense for it before ever climbing the ladder.

Hope this helps, William

PS: My bet is on the heat sensor.

[Camilo]

Thanks much for the hints and advice. I ended up finding an instruction on the Lightolier website (even though this fixture is almost 20 years old and wasn't exactly like new ones).

The odd thing was the voltage at the socket was around 70 - 80 volts. Disassembling the whole thing I traced from power source through all connections and found the most distal (nearest the socket) wire nut connectors to be the culprit - so it was as easy as re-stripping the ends and reconnecting. (and the obligatory handy-man's cleaning - Man, those things were dirty!)

Thanks again the advice and pointers were helpful and made the time on the very top of the tall stepladder a little more efficient and focused! (and the ALWAYS helpful reminder to turn off the power no doubt saved me a bad fall!)

Cam

Oh, just to show you how unobservant I've been for the past 8 years changing these bulbs - these are "eyeball" type fixtures and I hadn't even noticed it. Once I figured out it was called an eyeball fixture and that it was Lightolier, I found the web page and .pdf file